believe it or not

I would have so loved to write here in sanskrit, but this post is essentially for all those "hey, how did ur long weekend go?" people, and hence the english

4-days of samskritam immersion ! was just wonderful.. okay, lemme first talk about the life part and then the language part

Great food, a beautiful campsite, great weather.. Oh yeah, bit of issues here and there, but then overall, it was a 9/10 ... and quite a hectic schedule, but then, I guess thats how its meant to be - you simply do not have time to think of anything else....from the morning yoga sessions which were so refreshing albeit quite hectic, thro' all the super-active classes along the day, to the evening games, to the night entertainment program - everybit of which was awesome - the camp leaves me with tons of sweet memories....

As for the language : There was one point when I sort of was really convinced that the camp has clicked as it shud be, atleast on me. (For those who donno, we were speaking 99% samskritam for the last 4 days).

It was the third day of the camp.. I had to go inside the kitchen and ask for something - since the caterers did not know sanskrit, as I walked towards the kitchen , I was giving autosuggestions in my mind (believe it or not, in samskritam) that I should speak in English to them. But then, I reach the kitchen, and there.. I stand blank for 15-20 seconds. The only thing thats coming to my mind is samskritam. For once I had to translate whatever I was supposed to say, from samskritam to English, and speak !

No.. not just the camp... As the 4 of us drove back, I drove the 3 hr 15 drive (as per google maps) distance in 2 hr 40 mins and so we decided the use the "extra time" we got by dropping by the temple near my house (for me, sort of a thank you note). As I entered, the priest was talking to some one in Hindi. but I somehow thought it was samskritam. As I was trying hard to come to terms with the fact that it was Hindi, my friend, said "Its now going to take some time to figure out which language is being spoken".. so it was not just me .. And it holds for english too... When I switch on the TV for BBC news, the first one-or-two sentences, goes over my head.. - because somewhere my brain tries to interpret them as sasmkritam and fails.. and then slowly, it shifts to the english mode !!

Before tha camp, it was hard to avoid saying english words in between, while speaking in samskritam. Now, its diffficult to avoid, samskritam words popping up while talking in english.. For example "There are two problems here", end up being "there is probladvayam here" .. whenever I have to say "I mean" or "meaning", I end up saying "Ithyukte".......

Yup, I know, its perhaps going to go down and down as I get immresed back into the english world, but then, I am sure, my ears are going to have those reverberations for quite some days to come ..

Great job, SB :-)